High-Resolution Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave LiDAR Using Multiple Laser Sources Simultaneously Scanning

Abstract

We propose a high-resolution frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging system using multi-source stitching, which can effectively solve the contradiction between detection depth and scanning bandwidth. The system only needs a photodetector to simultaneously detect the measurement signal corresponding to each laser source, and can effectively correct the frequency modulation nonlinearity, the system structure is simplified while reduces the amount of data acquisition and enhances real-time. In this paper, ten tunable laser sources are set up for simulation measurements, which increases the resolution of the system by a factor of 10 and increases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Demonstration experiments are performed with two lasers, the results show that the measurement error at 2.6 m was usually less than 10 μm and the maximum error is 20 μm. In addition, this system is very promising to be combined with silicon photonics to achieve chip-scaled LiDAR, which will enhance its application potential greatly.